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Truth2Tell Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jan-08-10 01:26 AM
Original message
The logic behind making it a criminal act to give someone a drink of water
http://gazettetimes.com/news/opinion/columnists/article_aae1c066-faee-11de-9969-001cc4c002e0.html

As I See It: Make us all citizens of the world

By Paul deLespinasse

The pursuit of "illegal aliens" has become a high government priority. Congress has made it illegal to hire an "undocumented" alien who has managed to get into the U.S. Although discrimination in other contexts is illegal, for the undocumented it is mandatory.

-snip

Mandatory employment discrimination cannot do the whole job, especially since enforcement has been sporadic and half-hearted. So auxiliary measures are needed, and a recent court decision in Arizona illustrates what some of these measures might look like.

In June, a federal jury convicted Walt Staton of littering. His "littering" consisted of leaving jugs of fresh drinkable water in an area near the Mexican border for entering aliens who might otherwise have died from dehydration (as a great many indeed have).

The 27-year-old graduate student was sentenced to 300 hours of community service, a year's probation, and banned from the National Wildlife Refuge in which he had done his evil deeds. Now he has refused to do the community service and the judge is threatening to send him to prison.

The logic behind making it a criminal act to give someone a drink of water is also impeccable. If more "illegals" die from thirst, this will make crossing into the U.S. less attractive and reduce the burden of policing the border.

http://gazettetimes.com/news/opinion/columnists/article_aae1c066-faee-11de-9969-001cc4c002e0.html">Continued...
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arcadian Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jan-08-10 01:28 AM
Response to Original message
1. Actually in Nevada it's against the law NOT to give a thirsty person a drink of water.
I'll bet Arizona has similar. Most desert southwest states do.
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berni_mccoy Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jan-08-10 01:30 AM
Response to Original message
2. While I agree the man should not be punished for leaving water out...
I don't agree that ensuring employees are citizens or work-visa authorized is "mandatory discrimination".
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Truth2Tell Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jan-08-10 01:38 AM
Response to Reply #2
5. discrimination
di-skrim-uh-ney-shuhn

noun

treatment or consideration of, or making a distinction in favor of or against, a person or thing based on the group, class, or category to which that person or thing belongs rather than on individual merit

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/discrimination

Of course it's mandatory discrimination. Even if you think it's fully justified and a grand thing, it's still discrimination.
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berni_mccoy Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jan-08-10 01:40 AM
Response to Reply #5
7. Individual on merit is lost on you. The person came to the country illegally.
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Truth2Tell Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jan-08-10 01:41 AM
Response to Reply #7
8. That is a category, not "merit." nt
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berni_mccoy Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jan-08-10 01:46 AM
Response to Reply #8
9. violating the law is merit (or more appropriately, lack of)
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Truth2Tell Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jan-08-10 01:57 AM
Response to Reply #9
10. being a law breaker is a category
Edited on Fri Jan-08-10 02:02 AM by Truth2Tell
merit refers to a person's ability to perform the job
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berni_mccoy Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jan-08-10 02:43 AM
Response to Reply #10
15. merit refers to a person's ability to abide by the law
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immoderate Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jan-08-10 04:15 AM
Response to Reply #15
19. If you're hiring a law follower. But semantics...
Does merit mean a good spouse, a good student, a devout coupon clipper, a dedicated seatbelt wearer? I mean whom among us...?? :shrug:

--imm
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anonymous171 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jan-08-10 02:10 AM
Response to Reply #5
13. Right. But discrimination is not always wrong. nt
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Truth2Tell Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jan-08-10 02:14 AM
Response to Reply #13
14. absolutely. granted. nt
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Cleita Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jan-08-10 01:34 AM
Response to Original message
3. I mentioned in another post that if giving a drink of water to a
thirsty dog would be acceptable, so it should be humane to give a drink of water to a thirsty human being. I was amazed that some objected that if the dog was unlicensed it probably wasn't acceptable. :-(

We Americans are truly fucked.
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truedelphi Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jan-08-10 02:06 AM
Response to Reply #3
12. I have had moments like that here lately
I objected to local police killing a mentally challenged individual who was tearing up his own place.

Another poster said that the police should have killed him - after all, if he was a renter, think of the damage to the landlord's property!
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Javaman Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jan-08-10 11:42 AM
Response to Reply #12
23. they value things and property over life...
Edited on Fri Jan-08-10 11:44 AM by Javaman
perhaps if people were once again property, they would be okay with it.

It stymies me sometime when I read some of the truly heartless and asinine comments, such as the ones in this thread, stating, "but they are illegal!", meaning that's it perfectly fine to let these people die.

Call me crazy, but since I live in central texas, I'm privy to almost daily reports of illegals coming into this country and no where does it state that all of them were given water by kind hearted citizens. So therefore using these jackass morons reasoning, "if we we let them die in the desert, they will stop coming", fails the logic test.

The right, the blue dogs and just the plain heartless bastards out there have to understand one simple thing, the illegals won't stop coming. They refuse to face that fact. We can build fences, walls, trenches, put down land mines, put up guard towers, machine gun nests, etc: they will not stop coming.

Until it's economically not viable for the illegals to make the trek north, they won't stop.

I get emails from jackass family members who live in the northern climes of this nation spouting off their "solutions" to the illegal problems. They all are just guised excuses for racism and ignorance.

I live here, I see it daily.

If you want to stop illegals, make it very hard for employers to hire them. Make it hurt, make the fines so steep that they can lose their business.

But the reality is, that will never happen, because the corporate masters out there know full well, that our slave class illegals take care of all the menial work in this nation and they will be damned to get rid of them for fear of higher costs for hiring American citizens will cut into their bottom line.
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truedelphi Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jan-08-10 05:30 PM
Response to Reply #23
24. Totally agree.
I have worked in an industry very much affected by the massive amounts of people coming here.

Yet I know if I lived in a border area, I would be putting water out.

Like you say, it is not the people who come who are at fault. It is people at the top who want cheap labor. And if the industry involved cannot benefit from cheap labor from Mexico, that industry will line up to get the H1 visas.
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immoderate Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jan-08-10 04:21 AM
Response to Reply #3
20. You should go back...
Edited on Fri Jan-08-10 04:25 AM by immoderate
I explained that if the dog were unlicensed then it might not be pedigreed. It could be the result of an unsanctioned union. Think of the SIN!!! :cry:

On edit: Sarcasm was invented in Brooklyn in 1932 by Leo Gorcey.

--imm

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winyanstaz Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jan-08-10 01:34 AM
Response to Original message
4. It is just plain wrong to let people die of thirst..no matter who they are...
it is still state santioned murder to deny people water regardless of the reasons.
If this needs to be pointed out to the people in office..then they have no damned business being our leaders.
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Cleita Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jan-08-10 01:38 AM
Response to Reply #4
6. Amen. n/t
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alp227 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jan-08-10 02:03 AM
Response to Original message
11. Arizona chooses this BS sentencing instead of the Good Samaritan law
Frickin' bigotidiots.
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aquart Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jan-08-10 02:57 AM
Response to Original message
16. Did good Christians pass this abomination?
Matthew 25:41-46

41Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels:

42For I was an hungred, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink:

43I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not.

44Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee?

45Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me.

46And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.
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proteus_lives Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jan-08-10 03:06 AM
Response to Original message
17. If I encountered an illegal immigrant on the border....
I'd give him water or medical attention as needed. Then I'd call the cops/border patrol and report him.

I suggest this to everyone. That way you do the humane thing and the legal thing.
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Lil Missy Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jan-08-10 03:46 AM
Response to Original message
18. The crime was "littering".
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freeplessinseattle Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jan-08-10 05:24 AM
Response to Reply #18
21. brought before a federal jury?
yeah, that's usual.
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Warpy Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jan-08-10 11:39 AM
Response to Original message
22. If you tell kids about condoms, they will have SEX
If you decriminialize pot, EVERYBODY WILL USE IT and no one will work.

If you feed starving people, you'll make them weak and dependent.

If you give everybody health insurance, they'll be slaves to the nanny state.

It's the same inhumane, Puritan bullshit we've always faced from the conservative crowd.

That's the "logic," right there.

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